Relational capital: an empirical analysis on social cooperative enterprises belonging to a network

Purpose –This paper aims to assess the relational dimension of Italian Social Cooperative Enterprises (SCEs) belonging to a network, through the use measure of services supplied by network, depending on the geographical localization and the sector. Design/Methodology/Approach–A survey was conducted in 2016 involving 151 Italian social cooperatives which provide social, educational and health care services (A-type) or work integration for disadvantage people (B-type). In the survey, the respondents were called to give a judgement on the use measure of services provided by network. Each variable is measured through a 1 to 8 Likert-type scale. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been applied in order to identify the principal categories of services. Findings–After performing the PCA of services provided by network, two main components have been identified. The first one, called Strategic and Competitive Services, refers to the network services able to improve the competitive ability of SCEs through innovation, training, information sharing and image promotion; it explains 44.18% of total variance. While the second component is represented by the Administration and Commercial Services, that are typically operative services and it explains 10.66% of total variance. The total cumulative variance is equal to 54.85%. Research limitations - It may be argued that the main limitation of the study is related to the empirical research that includes SCEs exclusively belonging to five specific sectors. Thus, the results could potentially be influenced by the context and the low respondent rate. Additionally, the PCA is focused on a set of services supplied by network of SCEs that should be enriched. Further research - It could be interesting to investigate the relationships among the Intellectual Capital (IC) sub-components and Social Capital (SC) sub-dimensions.